Sunday, 26 February 2012

I'm selling off my Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy and Regia Marina fleets suitable for fighting the Battle of Cape Matapan 27th to 29th March 1941

The fleets are as follows:

Royal Navy; three battleships, one aircraft carrier, four cruisers and sixteen destroyers

Regia Marina; one battleship, nine cruisers, eighteen destroyers

These represent every ship that you need to recreate the engagement. I usually play General Quarters III now, but these are suitable for use with any set of WWII naval rules.

All the ships are Navwar models and are painted by myself and are based on plywood which has been textures to represent the high seas with Polyfilla.The bottom of the bases are magnetised for easy storage and transportation. The name of the ship is written on the bottom of each base.

Regia Marina Fleet

Royal Navy Fleet

Royal Navy cruiser

Royal Navy battleship

Royal Navy destroyer

Regia Marina battleship

Regia Marina cruiser

Regia Marina cruiser

Regia Marina destroyer

For all 52 ships I'm looking for £90.00 including UK recorded postage, if overseas I will do postage via International Signed for at cost.

Friday, 24 February 2012

We played the first Caen scenario from the rule book book, but as only my Western Desert troops were available we made the following modifications:

1/ To represent the effect of dust and heat haze there would be no good spotting or shooting over 9". Troops over 9" and in cover could only ever be hit on a poor chance.
2/ As the terrain was more western desert than the fields of Normandy and we were using my Indians we put the Allied Rally card in the deck to give the Allied forces a better chance to rally and move across the open.

The terrain was set up with several large hills and areas of rough ground. The DAK were to be defending a walled village.

Myself and Mark played the DAK, James played the Indians, Phil asked to join in so assisted James.

We deployed no troops in the village that we were to defend, but placed the first platoon with the company commander on a blind behind that village, the MG sections on a blind on the left flank, one section from the second platoon in a piece of rough ground front and left of the village, one section from the second platoon in a piece of rough ground front and right of the village. The remaining section from the second platoon and the big guy were deployed in front of the village.

The initial British stonk did quite well. The Germans lost one man dead and three shock in the blind behind the village, the other two hits on that blind were fortunately 'no effect' the section in the rough to the right were on six shock.

The game progressed quite well, as it was our first game we were having to refer to the rules a lot. The Indian suffered though because one blind of theirs was revealed as a dummy and another one on the German left was revealed as an infantry platoon. At this point a lot of the DAK revealed themselves and shot at the revealed platoon. This mean that in the deck the Germans had nearly all their cards, whereas the Indians had only one Platoon, one Big Guy and their Blinds card.

We went through about three tea breaks without seeing the Allied Blinds card, so the revealed Indian platoon got shot up quite badly.

The Allied blinds did eventually get turned over, but by that time they had been reduced quite severely.

In a final action of bravado, one India Platoon bayonet charged the DAK holding the rough ground to the left of the village, but were then cut down in a terrible crossfire, it would all be over and the village would not be held by the Indians.

All in all, a great game that we will definitely be playing again.

Here are some images from the game, all the figures and terrain are from my collection and were painted by me.

James finds out that Phil will be assisting him

Initial DAK deployment

DAK troops occupy the village

The revealed Indian platoon is cut up by the terrible MG34 fire

The Indian advance on the right is finally revealed, but is stuck on the hill

The central Indian platoon launches it's bayonet charge for a piece of rough ground

Troops defending the village prepare to pour enfilading fire into the Indian attack

Sunday, 19 February 2012

I finally finished off a lot of the 8th Army and Afrika Korps troops I had been working on over the back end of last year but never got around to photographing them. While I had the camera out today to take the pictures of the Napoleonics that I had finished I took the opportunity to take photographs of a few of the troops I had been working on.

We arrived back from Cornwall yesterday afternoon and I took the opportunity to put a mixture of Vallejo Pumice Gel and Vallejo US Field Drab onto the bases. This morning I woke up (bloody early as usual) and gave the bases a quick dry brush with Vallejo Dark Sand and stuck on some Woodland Scenics cork bark and some Woodland Scenics Field Grass and a sprinkle of Games Workshop Static Grass.

When the glue was dry I took them out to the garage and gave them a blast of Testors Dull-cote.

I've taken a few images:

Perry Miniatures plastic French casualties on Dial-Dude bases

Perry Miniatures plastic French casualties on Dial-Dude bases

Officer and Bugler from 3rd Company

5th Company

The 6th Hussars

6th Hussars

1st Company Elites

Hopefully my work schedule will allow me to get to Maelstrom Games one Tuesday Night in the near future so that I can unleash them.

The Limber is awaiting the delivery of a 60mm x 200mm base from Warbases, I'll get that finished and posted as soon as possible.

Thursday, 16 February 2012

The holiday painting continues, this morning I finished off eight casualty markers. I've done three as Light Infantry and the other five as Line Infantry Three have also had head swaps to give them Polekom.

When I get home these will be based on the last eight Dial Dude markers that I have. This brings the total of casualty markers up to 20 so should be enough for a good sized game.

Tuesday, 14 February 2012

We had a trip into the picturesque harbour town of Padstow today and fortunately Rick Steins chippy was closed so we managed not to have a Rick Stein lunch on top of a Jamie Oliver breakfast - that would have been too decadent.

So, back to the Swallows for a sandwich and some more painting time - hurrah!

I managed to get all the highlights done on the French Limbered artillery piece, I now join Quint in the ability to move my artillery around during our Black Powder games. Like the Hussars, when I get home I'll sort out the base and a coat of varnish.

Now we know the opening hours, we'll give Rick Steins chippy another go later in the week.